Ethics and athletics. Do those rhyming words go hand-in-hand, or is the term "sports ethics" an oxymoron?

It all depends.

For every feel-good story -- such as when a pair of Central Washington University softball players carried an injured opponent around the bases -- there are stomach-knotting contrasts, like a University of Florida football player trying to eye-gouge an opponent or the New Mexico women's soccer player yanking her foe to the ground by the ponytail.

Consider recent sports headline topics -- performance-enhancing drugs, cheating, gambling, violence on the field and in the stands and those exorbitant professional contracts.

And the scandal continues off the field, in bankruptcies and on police blotters. Athletes have faced charges from abuse, assault, gambling, intoxication, extortion, drugs and dangerous driving.

Some of the most well-known phrases in sport suggest a conflict between athletics and ethics:



"Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing."

"Nice guys finish last."

"No harm, no foul."

"If you're not cheating, you're not trying."

And "I am not a role model."

Yet despite such ethical challenges, University of North Carolina professor Jan Boxill sees both advances and opportunities for ethics in athletics.

"Sports play a really significant role in telling us who we are and where we are ethically," said Boxill, adding that society continues to agree to some standards and norms. "In general, I think we now have a better concept of what's acceptable and what's not."

Ethics-in-sports can come down to individual perception. Boxill uses her class discussions on the eye-gouging and hair-pulling incidents as evidence.

Of the eye-gouging attempt, many of her students -- particularly the males -- passed it off as "part of the game" and said it only got national attention because it was caught on tape. The soccer acts drew more negative responses because they were considered an aberration for women's athletics.

"They thought she should be banned, that this is not part of the game," said Boxill, who quickly reminded her students that "neither is eye-gouging."

Boxill boasts plenty of academic credentials -- the professor of philosophy is senior lecturer and director of the Parr Center for Ethics at UNC-Chapel Hill, the editor of the 2004 book "Sports Ethics" and author of the forthcoming book "Front Porch Ethics: The Moral Significance of Sport."

But Boxill provides balance from the sports' side, too. She's also a former UCLA basketball player and has worked as a basketball announcer at the University of North Carolina and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. She is also a radio broadcaster for UNC women's games.

She cites two ethical areas -- performance-enhancing drugs and violence -- as examples of increased awareness with more potential improvement.

Baseball and the Olympics have helped draw heightened attention to performance- enhancing drugs. "I think our moral senses have been heightened as to whether it's cheating or not," said Boxill, adding "most discussions will liken it to cheating in a classroom ... Do we really believe that performance-enhancing drugs ought not to be permitted. Are we hypocrites in the sense that we don't care what they are doing -- we just want to see home runs?"

In Boxill's opinion, broadcasting has both helped and hurt the issue of violence in sports.

"I think we have become more sensitive and hopefully more aware, youth in particular," she said, highlighting the key question: "What's the impact of sports on youth?"

Athletes on both the college and professional levels should recognize responsibilities accompany their high-profile roles in society.

Unethical acts can be as bad or worse in politics, finance, entertainment or other segments of society. "But they don't have the same kind of impact that sports does," Boxill said. "It's because of the emotional level of sports."

Society is well-served when ethics are taught and reinforced at an early age and at the broadest levels, she said. Decency and fair play should be preached not just to the young participants, but to the coaches and parents as well, since the latter are sometimes the worst detractors.

"We need to get them thinking about what the purpose of the game is and the ethical issues and morals we're teaching kids if we curse or tell them to cheat," she said. "We need to ask, What is it that we're telling them to do?"

Boxill says she sees more hope than despair on the horizon for sports ethics.

"Not only are sports a microcosm of society, but sports affect society," she said. "So I not only think that what you see in society you're going to see in sports, but I also think that some of the best (ethics) in sports can actually help progress the society. I think we've seen that already in racism and sexism."

E-mail: taylor@desnews.com